Chapter 393 - 384: Ratings_1

The Apollo 11 mission was later estimated to have been watched by approximately 600 million people worldwide, a number that is anything but small.

In the world of 1969, few households owned a television, which were essentially concentrated in America, Europe, and the Union, the combined population of these entities barely exceeding one billion.

Even in that era of underdeveloped communications, the Moon had such a draw that Storm announced its lunar orbit mission and within just over ten hours, nearly three billion viewers tuned in.

It’s hard not to raise expectations for the official moon landing; how many people will be there by then? Four billion, or even six billion?

Lin Ju momentarily lost focus for a bit, and then he heard voices both around him and in his mind.

Shen Zuozhou was about to remind him that Meng Senlin had already opened the hatch and was preparing to make the first exit, as the system also started to react.

[Event "Space Race" has reached a milestone: Humans orbit the Moon.]

[Competing party: The Base (Note: The nuclear-powered spacecraft of The Base has completed a manned reconnaissance mission around the only natural satellite of the planet and has become the first contestant to achieve this feat in this event.)]

[After the lunar orbit reconnaissance mission concludes, the system will perform a unified settlement based on the nature of the reconnaissance and feedback.]

[Note that this mission will have a significant impact on the event.]

...

"The world’s loneliest photo is refreshed."

From a distance of 500,000 kilometers from Earth, Hu Dong, the commander of Storm, took a photo featuring Earth and the Moon in a single frame, just at the end of deceleration; this photo was transmitted back to Earth and rapidly went viral with the rise of the sun.

In the photo, both Earth and Moon almost appear as complete circles due to the sunlight, and Hu Dong was exceedingly lucky to have captured this coincidence.

Now, Senator Robert was holding this photo in his hand, waving it furiously and spitting at Claire, who stood alone, subjected to the hearing.

"they have gone to the moon," the phrase was essentially ground out between Senator Robert’s clenched teeth, his face contorted, eyes almost bulging to their extremes.

"Mr. Bergen, tell me how much longer until you can send humans to the Moon?"

Claire was quite composed; he had not often experienced such scenes, but he had witnessed plenty.

"Your Excellency, NACA is advancing at an unprecedented pace. I assure you that we will send humans back to the Moon before next year."

Of course, he could not disclose the risky details of Artemis II mission, so Claire used the term "before" to vaguely skirt around the timing.

Robert was clearly unsatisfied with that answer, rudely pointing at Claire’s nose:

"I don’t need dates from you, I need assurances that we will be the first on the Moon.

Don’t try to fool us with technical jargon, we may not understand science, but we’re not so dumb as to not realize others have already taken the lead!"

No sooner had Robert finished speaking than another senator stood up:

"To my knowledge, Boeing’s second SLS rocket body has already been manufactured, so why not use it to go to the Moon? We even have a lunar space station, the first in the world."

Robert: "That little space station isn’t even half as heavy as Storm, at best it’s a tent."

"A Moon landing requires three rockets! You idiots understand nothing!"

"The Artemis project shows NACA’s incompetence! Why not spend that money improving public health?"

"..."

Claire watched, expression unchanging, as the senators began bickering among themselves, even ignoring him, the main subject of the hearing, finally understanding how John had assured him that he wouldn’t be ousted.

The chamber remained noisy for a while, and even the intervention of the Senate Chair couldn’t quell the chaos; they could only wait for calm to gradually restore itself.

Claire, facing the inquiry, now seemed like the spokesperson at a press conference, slowly detailing NACA’s current progress, achievements, and so on, essentially assuring that everything was in hand and there was no need for panic.

The shock that Storm gave to NACA lay more in its astonishing speed and the uncertainty of whether it might carry a lander, but it had been confirmed it was just a lunar orbit mission.

NACA was basically certain that the Moon mission would still be carried out by the CZ-10 rocket, and the launch time should remain unchanged.

However, after one orbit around the Moon, would Dawn III switch to a lunar landing mission?

Although the space agency had stated in the previous months that the crewed lunar program schedule would not change, who would bet against them suddenly shifting course, just like they did with the Skylight mission?

Claire felt it necessary to push for expedited progress on "Blue Moon."

...

B-level Base.

Having been part of a major event, Lin Ju quietly returned to the base without joining the celebratory banquet for Skylight I.

The duration of Storm’s stay on the Moon was set for about four to seven days, with the astronauts overwhelmingly favoring the latter option, planning their return to Earth between May 29th and 30th.

In Qiongzhou, two space shuttles and two CZ-III rockets nearly filled the launch site, temporarily halting preparations at the other two launch pads.

Because Storm took over a launch originally scheduled for Pioneer, the base now had two super-sized space shuttles on standby, coincidentally accumulating two life modules as well.

From the 23rd to the 26th, the two H2M space shuttles will sequentially ascend into space to execute installation missions for March; both life modules will launch concurrently.

Counting the shuttles themselves, within 96 hours, the Qiongzhou Launch Center will place over 400 tons of payload into space, setting a new record.

To alleviate the strain on the launch site, this time they planned to recover the two CZ-III rockets at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. Although sacrificing some transport capacity, the CZ-III rockets inherently had plenty of leftover fuel, meaning just an extra fuel top-up was needed.

The assembly of the super large mobile launch platform for the H2 and CZ-III rockets had commenced in Jiuquan, expected to be operational next month, reducing worries about the upcoming typhoon season starting from July.

Once the remaining two life modules are completed, the production of service modules will commence in earnest, constrained only by the capacity of Qingshan Base. The six deeply modified A100 engines pose a significant challenge; after all, the work environment is completely different from that of a space shuttle.

According to the base’s predictions, March could be operational as early as October.

On the ARJ21 business jet, Lin Ju internally decided that he would wait until March was completed this year before heading back into space. Although he hadn’t formally responded to Guo Fan’s suggestion, he inwardly gave a big thumbs up, finding it a perfect align with the higher-ups’ intentions.

The airplane touched down smoothly on the base’s runway, with Xie Miao leading a team from No. 304 Laboratory already waiting for him.

It was their constant stream of good news to Lin Ju in the Capital that had him rushing back so urgently; in their words, the No. 304 Injection was akin to a panacea, hard not to pique one’s interest.